Alone (Bone Secrets, #4)(7)

The phrase “Forest Park” caught her attention, and she focused on the TV. Black body bags on stretchers were being wheeled out of a trailhead and into waiting ambulances.

Her vision tunneled and sweat started under her arms.

Doors slammed on the back of an ambulance and it drove off. Its lights weren’t flashing and its siren was off; it wasn’t in a hurry.

Trinity couldn’t breathe.

The camera swung back to the trailhead. More stretchers. More bags of death.

“… the five teenage girls haven’t been identified and the sixth in the hospital may not make it,” said the broadcaster over the images.

Brooke?

Trinity’s hand shook and she dropped her spoon in her cereal. She grabbed her cell phone and fired off a text to Brooke. She waited, heart pounding, lungs tight. Her cereal burned in her gut. Her phone was quiet.

Please, God, no. Please, please, please!

Over the next ten minutes she sent two more texts. Still no answer. That wasn’t like Brooke. She was an extremely social high-school senior; the girl took her phone everywhere except into the shower. Not like Trinity. She considered herself to be on the high end of the shy scale. She almost felt honored to be one of Brooke’s closest friends. Trinity’s friends were few but very tight. Brooke mingled with everyone, but Trinity was part of her inner circle.

Brooke should have texted back by now.

What had happened?


The calls started pouring in during the morning news broadcast. Making his own calls about the dead girls, Detective Mason Callahan was thankful he didn’t work at the call center. All night no parents had called, looking for missing kids, but once the body bags appeared on the news, the county’s emergency network had been flooded.

Ray hung up his desk phone. “That park ranger from last night showed up downstairs a few minutes ago. He’s got a guy with him who saw the girls last night in the forest while they were still alive. The desk sergeant stuck them in an interview room.”

Mason stood up and pushed in his chair, grabbing a notepad from the stack on his desk. Finally. Someone who’d seen something. So far the morning had brought empty leads, frustration, and an acid stomach. “Let’s get on it.” He headed to the door with Ray at his heels, passing a television tuned to local news. Mason caught a glimpse of a reporter in front of the trailhead he’d entered last night.

“… parents are flooding nine-one-one saying their kids haven’t answered their cells…”

“Holy crap. There’re only six girls.” Ray Lusco ran a hand through his hair. “How come all these parents don’t know where their kids are?”

“Don’t your kids spend the night with friends?”

“Well, sure. But if my kids don’t answer their cell phones, you better damn well believe I’ll be calling the parents.”

“Both have cells now?” Mason asked. He knew Ray’s daughter had made a big deal out of wanting one a year ago, but his son was two years younger, barely in his teens. What would the boy need with a cell?

“Yeah, Ben wanted one after Kirstin got hers. Now it spends most of the time dead on the floor of his room or kicked under his bed. Glad we didn’t spend a bunch of money on it. Kirstin is on hers nonstop. Texting. That’s all she does. It takes her ten minutes to text a conversation she could have wrapped up in one minute with a phone call.”

“What’s the fun in making a call?”

Ray snorted. He peeked through a small window in the door of Interview 3. “What the hell?”

Mason couldn’t see around Ray’s bulk. “What?”

“He’s got a dog with him.”

“The park ranger?” Mason glanced at his notepad. “Rollins?”

“No, the guy with Rollins.” Ray sighed and opened the door, muttering something about allergy medication.

A large shepherd/collie/lab mix eyed both men as they entered the room, but it sat quietly next to its human. Mason didn’t think the dog would be a problem, but the body odor in the room was about to choke him. The dog’s owner was a transient, brown clothes, brown hair, brown skin. A brown backpack leaned against his legs. Heavy hiking boots were planted on either side of the backpack; the owner’s gaze met Mason’s.

He’s not nuts.

Portland had a large transient population. An ongoing issue for the police, politicians, and people who wanted to help. Mason’s encounters with transients had convinced him the majority of the people had mental issues that kept them on the street, unable to function in society. But a few were not mentally ill; they were people who’d purposefully chosen to live a different life or fate had simply dealt them a crappy hand.

Bud Rollins, the park ranger he’d met briefly last night, stood and held out a hand to the detectives. “This is Simon. He saw the girls going into Forest Park last night. I hunted him down this morning to ask if he’d seen anything, because I know he’s frequently in that area.”

Mason mentally added what Bud didn’t say. Simon lives illegally in the park.

“What did you see?” Mason asked the brown man.

Mason didn’t care if the man had an illegal campsite. He just wanted to know what Simon saw and get a feel for whether or not he was credible.

Ray sneezed.

Simon rubbed his dog’s head, his gaze calmly shifting between Mason and Ray. “I saw a teenage girl walking on one of the trails late last night. I followed her and watched for a bit, concerned because she was alone.” Simon spoke carefully in a low tone. “The park isn’t somewhere young girls should be alone at night.”